Tuesday

TAUNTON – State Rep. Geoff Diehl says unlike incumbent Elizabeth Warren he’s serious about representing the residents of Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate.

“She is now focused on a run for the White House and she will be for the next two years,” Diehl told a small crowd of supporters during a campaign stop in Taunton on Tuesday afternoon.

Unlike the Democratic incumbent, Diehl said: “You’ll get six years out of me working every day in Washington, D.C."

The 7th Plymouth District state representative — who became the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in September by defeating John Kingston and Beth Lindstrom — was alluding to Warren’s recent statement that she would “take a hard look” at a presidential run in 2020.

In a brief interview before stepping into Liberty and Union Ale House, Diehl said Warren should drop out of the Senate race.

Diehl called Taunton “an important city” during his brief speech inside the Trescott Street business.

Taunton was the sixth stop on Tuesday for Diehl among eight press-conference, campaign appearances that began in Whitman at 9 a.m.

Diehl said if Warren is re-elected, she would work to repeal a current federal tax statute that contributed to the commonwealth ending the fiscal year with more than $1 billion in revenue than had initially been anticipated.

“She’ll repeal the tax bill and raise taxes,” he asserted.

Diehl vowed to keep taxes in check and said he would work to ensure that governmental regulations affecting small-business owners would be kept to a minimum.

He criticized Warren for comments she made in August describing the country’s criminal justice system as “racist ... front to back.”

Diehl also touted a business he says he and his wife opened 16 years ago in Hanson.

His wife, KathyJo Boss, runs and teaches classes in voice, dance, acting and musical theater performance, according to the website for Boss Academy of Performing Arts.

Taunton has a similar business a block away on Main Street called Applause Academy.

Diehl, 49, complimented Republican Taunton state Rep. Shaunna O’Connell — with whom he’s worked alongside at the Statehouse the past eight years — as “an advocate for the taxpayers.”

O’Connell, 50, described Diehl as “passionate and principled” and, unlike Warren, a strong supporter of law enforcement.

“I’ve never seen someone work so hard to connect with so many people,” she said.

O’Connell said arranging and scheduling Taunton as a campaign stop came about in less than two days.

She says she asked her friend and local business owner Ed Correira to ask his friend Chris Coute, owner of Liberty and Union Ale House, if Diehl could use Coute’s business as a campaign-stop location.

Correira, also a Republican, says he supports Diehl along party lines, but also likes the fact that he’s “a moderate” who is willing to “listen to both sides.”

“He’s not a radical,” Correia said.

Mark Doherty said he was excited about meeting Diehl for the first time.

The 17-year-old Coyle and Cassidy High School senior says he began volunteering a month ago to work two to three days a week in Diehl’s Braintree campaign office.

Doherty, who says he’s always leaned toward the Democratic Party, said he doesn’t necessarily support either candidate but instead views it as an opportunity to gain valuable experience.

“I thought working in the campaign office of such an underdog candidate would be interesting,” he said.